Cimpl Blog

Self-serve Asset Management – How to Work Smarter with Social IT

No man is an island, and no single company or resource has all the answers. This is true no matter who you are, or what tool is available to you. There are many problems that require massive amounts of teamwork to solve. By putting everything together and everyone in touch with one another, big problems become smaller ones simply because the depth of insights skyrockets.

As a species, we’ve banded together to solve huge challenges over the entire course of human history. That hasn’t changed. The speed for getting these solutions through has always been pretty slow, however, that is the part that’s really starting to change. The power and availability of IT, especially what we call social IT, is making this possible.

What is Social IT?

Social IT is The ability for employees to manage themselves, get help and help others.

If that sounds a bit abstract, it’ll be easier to start by talking about something that touches most of us already: Social media. Most of us have been touched by social media (think Facebook!), even if we don’t use it. One of the core principles about social media is that it gives all people the ability to share all kinds of experiences with friends and strangers alike, even those halfway across the globe. This opens up avenues of collaboration and, in the best case scenarios, the tools to save lives. There is undeniable power in social media.

Now, here’s the thing: The very technology that allows social media to be a phenomenally powerful social force can be used to make business – all business – more efficient and productive.

Here’s a breakdown of the things that make up social IT:

Customized and integrated existing social media platforms.

This sounds obvious, but it still bears noting. Favourites like Lync, LinkedIn, and Twitter can all be customized for use inside a company’s work environment. Why reinvent the wheel when you don’t have to do so? Of course, putting these together is only the beginning.

Processes consolidated from many sources. By smoothly connecting many processes together in the same software, you can (and should) get 3 things:

A high-level view of everything you own and how it’s being used.

Open (or more open) communication between departments, teams, and individuals

Workflow automation - the mechanical parts of repetitive work activities such as password resets, plan upgrades, and equipment transfers can be completely transferred to software solutions.

A self-serve portal.

Because everything’s connected, it becomes easy to give each employees a single point of access where they can manage most critical (but non-complex) IT tasks (e.g., password resets) and self-validate assets assigned to them.

Benefits of Social IT (Hint: It helps you work smarter!)

The biggest benefit by far is that employees can easily share tips, experiences, ideas, and knowledge through social IT. It really reduces stress on corporate IT and creates the context for bringing innovative solutions into the workplace.

There are benefits to partners and vendors too! Most important is the improved channeling of service requests. Again, with everything connected, requests for a service can be more directly communicated. And the sooner someone knows about a request, the sooner it can be filled!

The same principle applies to reporting problems; with social IT, vendors can be directly contacted, without going through traditional helpdesk support. This drives down Mean Time to Restore Service (MTRS).

Final words for now…

Well, we’re nearing the end of our little series on Cimpl’s vision of the future of technology in business. We’ve covered:

This series concludes next week. Be on the lookout for a streamed recording of our Vision Webinar, where our President, Christopher Thierry, explains everything we’ve touched upon these last two weeks in a single, easy-to-follow sitting. This will help you all navigate the coming future of business technology! Cimpl is Canada's leader in IT and telecom expense management, always ready to tackle new business tech.

Henry is a dedicated technical writer, focused on conducting market research, contributing to product design, and writing clear and concise documentation for the company. He is an enthusiastic team member and is passionate about science and technology, who plays a key role in Cimpl’s product messaging. His dedication to writing is reflected in his experience in authoring academic papers, documentation, user guides, and in contributing to Cimpl’s marketing efforts.

About Us

Cimpl is leading the revolution in telecom, IT and cloud expense management. Its software-as-a-service platform brings together actionable data analytics and automates business processes to ensure optimal ROI on technology assets.